Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1887-04-28
OUR WAYS AND GODS.

OUR WAYS AND GODS.
Starting out in self-Confdence We Find
Ourselves Toward the Last, Far rom
the Point at Which We Aimed-Duty Of
Improving the Present.
When they come to the second de.
cade of their lives young men who are
not born to business or with tigura-
tive golden spoons in their mouths,
generally find it advisable. or think
they do. to carefully lay their plans
for the life of manhood which seems
suddenly to have opened before them.
This mapping out of future live is not
a specially new business with most OF
them. That is what nearly all of them
have been doing for five or ten years
but, somehow, heretofore every plan
for the future has died of old age dur
ing the week in which it was formed.
The time has now come for solid and
serious business. Rolling up figura-
tive sleeves. they address themselves
to that business-which. by the way,
is rathera captivating thing, because it
leaves a young man SO entirely the ar
bitter of his own destiny. He ism
obliged even to put in the proviso. IF
God WILL Generally he doesn't;
when he does. and sticks to it,
he unusually finds that he has done a
remarkably sensible thing. and not for
this world alone. And so the rough
hcwing process goes on-indeed. some
remarkably fine work is done in this
line-until the work is looked upon
with satisfaction, and is pronounced
good.
But how true it is that. when we have
reached the fiftieth or sixtieth mile
stone on our lives journey. and the
work of those lives, for good or for
evil, is nearly done. and when We come
to look backward on the path, along
which we have travelled we find thai
not one in fifty of us. probably not one
in hundred. has Travelled the road Inc
marked out for himself so confidently.
We did not go. as we fully proposed.
Into such a city, to continue there
and buy and sell, and get gain. Prob
ably we never got in sight of it. If
we entered professional life the Lord
didn't let us stay there for some wise
reason. If we entered business life
we drifted out of it in some strange
way. We started all right. with drums
beating and banners flying. very full
of self-confidence and feeling quite in
dependent of God. if we thought of HIM
at all, but somehow before we travelled
far. an unseen hand turned little
switch and sent us of along track of
which we had never heard. and in a
direction in which we never dreamed
of going, and would never have gone if
we could have helped it. We tried to
get back, but couldn't. An unseen
hand seemed to hold us in its iron grip.
a resistless and unseen force seemed to
propel us in the new and unpleasant
direction. and when we reach our
sixtieth. fiftieth, or even our fortieth
year, we find ourselves just where. at
twenty or twenty-five, we never thought
of being; just where. at that time. we
didn't wish to go. but generally just
where we wish to stay. We may not
recognize the fact as readily and as
fully rs we should. and SO may not be as
thankful rs we should for it; but it is
very certain that the Lord has led the
blind by way that they knew not. and
,,orh ~ I;Jn.< ~,,ou< m Hno,,y ouI hos
made darkness light before them. and
all the crooked things straightforward
there seemed to be a hopeless number
of them. Sometimes we realize how
much of present and past enjoyment,
and Of blessed hopes for the future.
we owe to the fact that in spite of all
our mournful protestations the land of
God has crushed all our homemade
plans, scattered to the winds all our
rough-hewing and fine dressing of
future ends. and led US. gently some
times and sometimes by force. into
paths from which we shrunk at first
but soon learned to love. He has been
kinder to us than our own plans. how
ever much we may forget to recognize
the fact
But with all this, it is undoubtedly
true that many of us have been switched
of from the path that led. as we
thought to the qualification of high
and worthy ambitions and to the fulfill
ment of fondly cherished and legitimate
purposes. and have been swept along
on the new track until we were
dropped, unexpectedly and in a disap-
pointing way, at some obscure station
from which we have never been able to
get away and where we have never
been contented to stay. Just as un-
doubtedly it is hard to look back upon
disenchanted past which was at ono
time an enchanting future-hard to
look back upon what we tried to be
and around upon what we are. and be-
isye at the same time that all things